Remember This? "9/11, Vote for Me!"

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"Senate Republicans filibuster the Zadroga bill but pass tax cuts for the wealthy (NY Times), which is great news for firefighters who make over $200,000 a year."

Progressives, Your Approval Waiting is Low

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Stewart puts it nicely. He makes us laugh. Or at least, he makes me laugh. Fair warning: after the jump, I stop laughing.

It's Too Late to Plead the Fifth

Okay, so I could've posted about W Bush's confession that he authorized torture last week. But I decided to be a downer the week of Veterans' Day. However, that was last week, and I just got an interesting reminder via Portside, and an idea just occured to me. The reminder, the actual text of which I share later, is that there are two investigations related to the U.S. torture program pending in the National Court of Spain.

And the thought? Since the Republican party has decided to go tea pot crazy and co-sign the idiocy that Obama is some sort of jihadist Manchurian president, and since they promise a series of investigations into the Obama administration, Obama should go after BushCo full board. What does he have to lose? And is it really worth permiting the injustice of not holding war criminals accountable for their crimes?

Republicans Aren't "Hypocrits" After All!

No, I'm not deviating from the script. I still very much plan to continue my series "A Conflict of Faiths." It just so happened that I can across this op-ed I thought was really cool.

Stop calling Republicans 'hypocrites'

Posted: Sunday, August 8, 2010 10:27 pm


Tina Dupuy, guest commentary

It's not that Republicans aren't hypocrites - it's more the label just isn't an effective dig. First, hypocrite is a fancy foreign Greek word like amnesty, ethics or Europe - how is that going to appeal to Republicans? Second, espousing virtues you don't personally have to live up to is basically the point of being a Republican.

The Right is "Taking Back" the Civil Rights Movement, Remember?

Black Power's Gonna Get You Sucka:
Right-Wing Paranoia and the Rhetoric of Modern Racism
By Tim Wise

July 10, 2010

Prominent white conservatives are angry about racism.

Forget all that talk about a post-racial society. They know better than to believe in such a thing, and they’re hopping mad.

Party Like It's 1773 . . . Make That 1963!!

I've said before the first tip-off to the racism of the tea party "movement" was that they were reaching to a time antebellum, before that awful war of "yankee aggression." That others tried to deny the racism was to me a joke, but at times I did entertain them. I wanted to display an open mind. My mom used to tell me, "Seek to understand before you seek to be understood."

That Joan Walsh seems to have taken a year to come to terms with that, which may be a reflection of racism on the left - their annoying habit of giving white racists the benefit of doubt for the sake of being objective, it sort of sad in itself. I mean, damn. They really did have to spit at black Congressmen and call them niggers and call Rep. Barney Frank a faggot for someone to just accept that, yes, they're a bunch of homophobic racists in the order of the KKK.

Bushwhacked, Again!! (Updated)

No new information, just a thought. Isn't it ironic that for all the whining and complaining about liberals using the Courts to push their agenda on the country, that's precisely what conservatives have done.
                                  __________________________________________
If the election of Scott Brown(ie), 'Publican of mASSachusetts, wasn't enough, now this:

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads.

I am near tears.

Hellava Job Scott Brown(ie)

These are just my initial thoughts. Maybe I'll write more later.

3 - Sarah Palin is no feminist, and if it weren't for the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s that so many conservatives decry, she would still be in Alaska. Now, to be sure, feminism is about women's equality and ability to do and say anything they like. One thing it is not about is restricting women's reproductive rights. Moreover, from what I can tell, she hasn't reached national prominence based merit; but perhaps, the lack thereof.

2 - How dare he suggest Obama was born out of wedlock. Now, I'm not hating on folks who were and are. But inference he is making, for those who support him, is crude. Obama's mother was married. Or, is it that black or biracial child born to a teen is born out-of-wedlock?

1 - If Obama's mother wasn't married when he was born, then he's a natural citizen of the US, no question about it. Tea baggers/birthers/Republicans can't have it both ways.

Initially, I was ambivalent about making calls to Massachusetts about their intrastate politics. Now, well . . . I hope it's okay to call on a holiday.

Vindication?

I'm not sure this is vindication for ACORN, but it's something. ~ No1KState

Investigation Finds ACORN Didn't Break Laws
Christopher WeberEditor

A report commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee found ACORN, a community organizing group heavily criticized after an undercover video surfaced, has not violated any federal regulations.

The study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service found that ACORN correctly used all federal dollars it received and did not improperly register any voters during last year's presidential election.

ACORN came under fire after undercover video footage surfaced that showed employees discussing prostitution, tax evasion, and smuggling with a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute. Earlier this month an outside legal expert hired by the group found no laws were broken by staffers caught on video.

While ACORN was found not to have violated any laws, its conservative critics who made the video may have. The CRS report said the covert filming may have broken laws in Maryland and California, where some of the footage was shot. Both states forbid shooting video when both parties aren't aware of the filming.

After the videos surfaced, Congress voted to strip ACORN of federal funding, but the CRS report said courts "may have sufficient basis" to rule that unconstitutional.

ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- remains the subject of at least 11 federal, state, and local investigations, according to the report.

Among other things, ACORN's Web site says the group campaigns for better housing, schools, neighborhoods, health care, job conditions, and more for low- and moderate-income families.

Read the full report here.

All Natural: ACORN and Woods

Kinda tired so I'll make this quick.

I want to remind you of just two things: ACORN isn't under investigation from anyone, hasn't been convicted or indicted of anything; the Congress was a bit premature and hypocritical to look to end all federal funding to ACORN after well more than just "billions" has been defrauded by several war contractors with which the DoD is still doing business.

So the internal audit was completely voluntary, however necessary for PR. The Washington Post uses an article by the AP to inform readers of the findings of ACORN's internal review: none of ACORN's employees committed any crimes. What they leave out is that several of the videos that started the scandal were edited and left out exculpatory evidence. In San Diego, one employee called his cousin, a police officer, and warned him about possible human trafficking. Employees in Philly also alerted the police.

The people who produced the video, of course, are decry the finding. They say that it's only reasonable that the group paid by ACORN to do the internal review would have a good finding. Though, how else is an internal review done, right? Either from in-group or out-group, but always pay for by the group.

That said, what makes this worse is that the media did none of the basic journalistic investigations that would've uncovered a great deal of what the report found. But instead, they acted make a gossip chain, just repeating what they heard from someone else. And while Rachel Maddow at least highlighted the hypocrisy of the whole thing, at the end of the day, not even MSNBC did much more than discuss the news reporting as though it were news reporting.

And I'm so, so tired of the brouhaha over Tiger Woods. I find it awfully suspect that with adulterers in Congress, even Bill Clinton, and the anti-ED commercial shown during golf - all of a sudden the nation is appalled by the man-hoe. And for a racial angle thanks to Karith Foster (Booooo!! apparently), here's one very good article and here's another.

What the what!?!?!

I hardly know what to say about this, people using Psalm 109:8 as an anti-Obama slogan. I mean, did they miss the W Bush years or the part about loving your enemies? And what is it that they're accusing Pres Obama of anyway. If you're one of these haters, please let me know. And being specific. Don't go into bland, political ideological talking points about healthcare reform or the bail out. No, I want you to be specific. Did you not receive your share of the stimulus? Perhaps he aborted your baby. Maybe he started one war and then forgot about it, or maybe he lied us into a completely unnecessary war and let contractors defraud the country out of billions, maybe even trillions of dollars.

Really, I wanna know. But I want specific descriptions of what he did and why it warrants this reaction. No accusations about destroying America. Tell me how he's destroying America, allegedly. Understand? Less adjectives and adverbs, more nouns and verbs. I mean, if it's that bad, I want to know. So what is he doing that you find so abominable that you advocate violence against him?

Now It's Sexism in Session(s)

I saw the clip when the show first aired. I had other things on my mind. But after seeing this article in The Nation, I decided to share just a couple of thoughts. I share Jon Stewart even though we're saying the same thing because he's funny.

1 - Should they start complaining about executive compensation, remember this:

"Congress should not be involved in writing or rewriting private contracts," he (Sessions) argued.

2 - They can't pass this, but they can go after ACORN?

The bill was, he (Sessions) maintained, a "political amendment at bottom, representing a political attack on Halliburton."

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The Ego Has Landed!!!

Okay so yeah, I had this thought earlier today, but was working on the healthcare post.

So anyway. Chicago lost its bit to host the Olympics. Rio de Janeiro won. I'm quite pleased that Rio won. I cheer for Latin America, much of which is steeped in African tradition and heritage. I'm not sure how I feel about the way Rio treats its poor; but be that is it may, I'm not happy that Chicago lost.

Conservatives and 'Publicans are. Beck and Rush, though, are. The headline "The Ego Has Landed" is borrowed from the drudgereport. However, I can't bring myself to link you to any idiot (re: conservative) sites, so this will have to do.

But. If you know me, you know my contrary thinking found a silver lining, gold even, around this particular cloud.

1. Since "the world reject has rejected Obama", that should put an end to all the "Obama is the anti-Christ" dribble.
2. It should also put an end to the Obama new global world order nonsense.
3. No more false patriotism.

I think that's it. I'll update if I come up with anymore.

Watch Out for that Nut!!

Okay. I got the sniff on the start from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. Video is below.

Here's a study on ACORN. Well, the main page to the study. And here's UEPI's sort of introductory blog about the study. Peter Dreier and Christopher Martin of the Urban and Environmental Political Institute found that media outlets, starting with right-wing media but now including mainstream media, have misreported much of the controversy surrounding ACORN.

Here's the thing. ACORN helps out poor people, especially people in urban areas, especially poor black people. They fight for higher minimum wage and more labor rights. Stuff like that. They were among the first organizations to warn about predatory lending. And anytime little people are empowered, big people panic and try to squash them.

Don't get me wrong. I was disturbed by the videos just like everybody else, but those people have been fired or laid off. For all the Republican "outrage" over voter registration fraud, it was usually ACORN itself that flagged election boards to the problem.

And I can think of two companies off the top of my head who've defrauded the federal government out of billions and/or were corrupt from top to bottom: Halliburton and Blackwater/Xe. Is the House of Representatives about to vote to stop funding them?

I have other thoughts but not feeling topnotch right now. Holla!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's Not Racist, But . . .

If you know me, then you know I do think race is playing a part in the persecution of ACORN. How many dangerous contractors do we still have in Iraq? And to the extent that senate Dems are just appeasing Republicans, I coulda sworn that appeasement was pointless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't subscribe to that notion the way BushCo used it. But. I do know people who make a big to-do out of "appeasement" should never be "appeased." ~ No1KState


The ACORN Vote: End The Appeasement
By Isaiah J. Poole

September 15, 2009 - 1:55pm ET

Last night, on a 83-7 vote, the Senate voted to bar ACORN from receiving any funds in the fiscal 2010 Transportation and HUD appropriations bills. If the House follows suit, that would effectively end several housing assistance and advocacy programs that ACORN has successfully done for several years.

The vote is the latest fallout from Glenn Beck’s jihad against all signs of progressivism in the Obama White House. First it was Van Jones, fired from his green jobs advisory post after right-wing websites branded him a Communist radical. Now it’s ACORN. Who’s next?

The worst part is that a majority of Senate Democrats went along with the vote against ACORN. Freshman Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., sponsored the amendment cutting the funding, and used to back up his argument a deluge of right-wing propaganda — from the entrapment of ACORN employees by a conservative video hit squad to an 88-page screed ginned up in July by Rep. Darrell Issa and House Republicans entitled “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As A Criminal Enterprise?”

Not one Democrat had the guts to speak up on the Senate floor against this right-wing attack.

Digby on Saturday shared a reader observation that helps put this in context: Recall that Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, has had a contract with the State Department extended this month despite the fact that five Blackwater guards were charged with 35 counts of manslaughter. Blackwater almost singlehandedly undercut Iraqi support for the American presence in Iraq, but Congress took no action to bar it from further contracts.

There is one word for the Democratic votes to de-fund ACORN: appeasement. The conservative machine to which Glenn Beck is beholden gins up a controversy based on either facts blown out of proportion or total falsehoods. And when faced with the opportunity to stand up for truth, fairness, due process and the mandate the voters gave Congress and the White House to stand up for progressive policies, too many Democrats either run silent or run scared.

We should know from the health care debate that appeasement is as failed a strategy today as it was in 1938 when Neville Chamberlain tried it against Nazi Germany. The more Democrats give in—whether it's deep-sixing the public option in response to fear-mongering about "government-run health care" or cutting funds to badly needed services for low-income people because of a few bad actors in a grassroots organization—the more empowered and hungry the unprincipled power-grabbers in the conservative movement will become. It is a losing strategy for Democrats and a dangerous path for America.

Congress, stop the appeasement. Get a spine. Draw a line. Now

I Love This President

Update: Click here to send a message to your Congresspeople.

Here's my favorite part of his speech:

It's -- it's worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I've proposed tonight. But its impact shouldn't be exaggerated by the left or the right or the media. It is only one part of my plan, and shouldn't be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles.

To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage available for those without it.

The public option -- the public option is only a means to that end, and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.

And to my Republican friends, I say that rather than making wild claims about a government takeover of health care, we should work together to address any legitimate concerns you may have.

For example -- for example, some have suggested that the public option go into effect only in those markets where insurance companies are not providing affordable policies. Others have proposed a co-op or another nonprofit entity to administer the plan.

These are all constructive ideas worth exploring. But I will not back down on the basic principle that, if Americans can't find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.

Here's my favorite part of the Obama plan (pdf):

Immediately offers new, low-cost coverage through a national "high risk"
pool to protect people with preexisting conditions from financial ruin until the new Exchange is created. For those Americans who cannot get insurance coverage today because of a pre-existing condition, the President’s plan will immediately make available coverage without a mark-up due to their health condition. This policy will offer protection against financial ruin until a wider array of choices become available in the new exchange in 2013 (pdf).

And for the Joe Wilsons of the world who want "their" country back, let me say this: It's my country, too.

Here's a link to the late Senator Ted Kennedy's letter. Wow. It's really touching.

More on Van Jones

via, colorofchange.org:

Saturday night, Van Jones resigned from his job as the White House special adviser on Green Jobs.1 Van's resignation came after a vicious smear campaign by Fox television host Glenn Beck, and it is the latest evidence of why our campaign against Beck is so important.

Van is a passionate thinker and leader and we are grateful to him for co-founding ColorOfChange. But this campaign is not about Van. It's about stopping Glenn Beck, who has promised to take his witch-hunt to others in the administration. Beck's overall plan is to create an atmosphere in which the White House can accomplish nothing, and he's carrying it out by preying on race-based fears and mobilizing hate.

The good news is that our campaign is working. More than 175,000 of you have stood up, and advertisers have followed suit. As of today, 62 companies have stopped their ads from running on Beck's show. Every national company with a name you'd recognize is gone. What's left are mostly far-right groups and direct marketing companies selling things like gold coins and discounted exercise equipment.

The reality of Beck's attacks on Van

After we launched this campaign, some bloggers and reporters tried to discredit the effort by claiming that the White House or Van was somehow involved, or that we launched the campaign to protect Van. It's an absurd accusation. Van hasn't worked with ColorOfChange in years, and when we decided to launch the campaign we didn't even know that Beck had attacked him. The reality is that we began our campaign for the same reason 175,000 of you have now joined it: Glenn Beck called the president of the United States a "racist" who "has a deep seated hatred for White people," which is part of a pattern of Beck using lies and distortions to race-bait and fear-monger.2

As Beck started losing advertisers in response to our campaign, he went into full-scale attack mode on Van--exaggerating or distorting his record on 23 shows and devoting an entire segment to discrediting him. Beck presented his attacks on Van as honest journalistic inquiry, while dishonestly failing to mention that Van co-founded the group leading a successful advertiser boycott against him.

But Beck's real goals were clear: Take down Van. Undermine the White House. Set the stage for his followers to say our campaign was about protecting Van. And of course, create a distraction from our campaign and the real reasons major companies are ditching Beck's show.

The problem with Beck

Glenn Beck's show is described as news analysis and commentary, and he claims to be bringing his viewers "the facts"; but his attacks on the President's character, agenda and advisers are anything but news. They are political character assassination of the worst form, relying on dishonesty, distortion, exaggeration, and fear. And Beck has promised to launch more attacks on new targets.3 Our country is facing numerous challenges, including a struggling economy, a climate and energy crisis, and a broken health care system. The media should be promoting thoughtful, rational dialogue about how to solve these problems, not launching dishonest political attacks to distract and divide us.

Our team is working hard to use all the tools at our disposal to take away Beck's platform. In the coming weeks there will be more for you to do. But for now, we ask you to do something simple. If you haven't done so already, please email your friends and family, and ask them to sign on to our campaign against Glenn Beck. There's a message you can send them at the link below:

http://colorofchange.org/beck/passalong.html?id=1756-227036

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
September 9th, 2009

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/?id=1756-227036

References

1. "White House Official Resigns After G.O.P. Criticism," New York Times, 9-06-09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/politics/07vanjones.html

2. "Beck caps off week of race-baiting by calling Obama a 'racist'," Media Matters, 7-30-09
http://mediamatters.org/research/200907300019

3. @glennbeck on Twitter, 9-03-09
http://twitter.com/glennbeck/status/3749169499 (You'll have to copy/paste that on your own.)

This Is a Big Loss

Apparently, fringers on the right are celebrating the resignation of Van Jones as "czar" of green jobs. Now, I can't vouch for the article and refuse to cruise through conservative sites, so you'll either have to take my word for it or google yourself.

Here's where I first came across Van Jones. Van Jones is someone who combines economic justice, eco-activism, and racial equality; basically, he promotes green jobs for inner-city residents. The right based their attacks on him, cause basically they attack everything Pres. Obama does, on his early association with communism and his signing some 9/11 "truthers" petition. Now, when it comes to 9/11 . . . I don't want to believe that BushCo would have allowed thousands of Americans to die as a pretext for war. I don't put it past them; and it's certainly clear that if they didn't know, they should've; so, I don't think his signing the petition is something extraordinarily radical. But you know the right. These are people who block nominations because they have questions the agency the nominee will direct hasn't "adequately" answered. That's what David Vitter did to Craig Fugate. Vitter had questions FEMA hadn't adequately answered so he blocked the nomination. Yes, FEMA would be in a better position to answer Vitter's questions if there were a director; so you get my point.

But anyway, Jones' idea was to protect the environment by going green - windmills, solar panels, retro-fitting buildings to make them greener, etc. Doing that involves lots of stuff I'm not adequately informed about to explain to you. Suffice it to say that moving to a green economy would create a lot of jobs that would be difficult to out-source. So there's that.

What's really exciting to me about Jones' idea is that he wants to base the factories and plants in the inner-city!! Wow! Amazing! It's very rare that you find someone who has a vision for killing three birds with one stone. I gotta admit, even I'm not that bright, and we all know I'm incredibly bright!

The third bird? Well. Let's say racism was completely eradicated, but the basics of our social-economy remained the same: there would still be a drag on the black community. This is because of our disproportionate rate of concentrated poverty. Now, I should probably go through everything that's happened that's lead to the situation, but I don't feel up to it. Just . . . understand that the black unemployment rate was around 10% before the bottom fell out of the economy. Some of that is because there're no jobs in the inner-city. So you get concentrated poverty and from concentrated poverty you get high crime rates and high rates of high school drop-outs, etc and so on. Putting jobs in the inner-city would improve the economic outlook of the black community and diffuse a great deal of our social ills.

Don't misunderstand, he's anti-racist, too. But in the absence of more white people catching a clue, his idea would do just, :sigh:, do so much to improve the lives of soooo many people. And I hate that the right won on this. Glen Beck sucks even more than I originally thought, and what I originally thought, er, lets just say it involves a backhanded insult to teenage girls.

Holla dolla! Get at me!

Poor White Men :sigh:

I don't mean poor as in "having little or no money." I mean poor as in "unfortunate;hapless."

LOL!

Here's another article with a bit of a fresh perspective about the Sotomayor nomination and the racist backlash by conservatives.

Don't get me wrong. On one hand, to keep talking about the notion that Sotomayor is racist does lead credence to the lie. On the other, not to talk about the fallacy of logic would be to miss an opportunity to education:Not only are conservatives lying about Judge Sotomayor, they're lying about the current and future status and prospects of white men.

I mean, take Patty B (Pat Buchanan) for example. He's said:

You got down to four women, not a single white male – all women … Probably half of the great lawyers and judges are white males in this country. To rule them out, why? Because of sex and because of their race is wrong, I think.

There are a few problems with this statement I think we should break down.

1. Who decided that half of the great lawyers and judges are white males? Is it really that many? Isn't it racist to assume it's that many without actually knowing?
2. Let's say it is that many. Does that mean that women and minorities are less likely to make good judges? Or, does that mean that we need more women and minority judges?
3. And let's say it is that many. Doesn't it mean that white males are over-represented on the Supreme Court? How is that not racist?
4. Isn't it strange that with all the barriers women and people of color face in this country, the only time conservatives/Republicans really speak out against racism and/or sexism is when they perceive it's happening to white men?

And let's not delude ourselves. This is NOT just a run-of-the-mill conservative attack against Democrats. This is an attack against anti-racism - that's why they're stealing the language of anti-racist activists. This is an attack against racial and gender progress and equality. This is an attempt to maintain white male supremacy in the US.

Don't get me wrong. They know these attacks won't keep Sotomayor off the bench. What it will do is galvanize whites and their lackeys of color against Democrats; against Pres. Obama's next political move; and most especially, against future attempts to ensure equality and justice for all.

They are protecting their positions of power. And that is wrong, I know.

Word Thieves

Remember I kept having trouble getting to the bottom of what disturbed me so much about the accusation of Sotomayor as a racist here (second full paragraph)? And my sort of putting my finger on the issue here? Well, here's another problem with the accusation and why I'm so disturbed.